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Petroleum Refinery Process

Petroleum consists of a complicated mixture of organic liquids that are referred to as crude oil and natural gas. Both of these substances occur naturally within the earth and first formed millions of years ago. The crude oil found in different oil fields varies in composition and color. Some have a pale yellow color and are not too thick while others can be completely black in color and can be as thick as treacle in consistency.

Petroleum is extracted from the earth, under the oceans or on land. This is usually done by means of an oil well and the extractions are transferred via pipelines of ships to petroleum refineries so that their components can be separated and processed into the refined products that can be used by industries. Petroleum in its raw, natural state is completely useless and the real value of it comes from the many components that it is made out of, such as waxes, fuels, asphalt, lubricants, pipeline quality natural gas and petrochemicals.

Because petroleum is extracted from under the ground, the main components are hydrocarbon compounds. Only very small amounts of other elements are present, which are usually nitrogen, sulphur, oxygen, water and salt. Petroleum refineries remove these non-hydrocarbon components and break down the petroleum oil itself into the various building blocks that it is made of, and then convert these into useful substances that are free of any impurities and other unwanted hydrocarbons.

Petroleum is separated through a process called fractional distillation. The petroleum is boiled and as each different component reaches it boiling point, it boils over into a gas. This gas is then condensed and collected separately from the other components. Even so, the products of fractional distillation still are not ready for the market. Several of these substances need further chemical processing before they are converted into useful substances.

One fraction can be converted into another through several methods. Cracking is a common method that breaks down large chain hydrocarbons into short chain hydrocarbons. Unification is another process that is used to process the components of petroleum. It involves combining small hydrocarbons to make larger ones that are more useful. Often times the structures of the molecules of a hydrocarbon fraction are not arranged in a way that makes them useful. Hydrocarbons can be rearranged to make other desired hydrocarbons in a process called alteration. The most common type of alteration is the alkylation of hydrocarbons.

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SM.Shahriar said:

after condensate fractionation we can found kerosene fuel oil etc.Any other byproduce we can found

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Roughneck Definition Exxonmobil

ExxonMobil is an American gas, and oil company. It became a company in late 1999 when two oil companies merged into one. Exxon and Mobil. The company descended from the former Standard Oil company founded by John D Rockefeller. The merger of Exxon and Mobil to...

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